


Prone to Bruising

by red-catmander (maximum_overboner)



Series: Ad Meliora [1]
Category: Guild Wars 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Charracter study. Ha! I'll stop, F/M, OC, Order of Whispers (Guild Wars), Some light humour, The charr commander.... Charrmander, Tybalt's an interesting character and I have a terminal case of verbose bitch disease, an excuse to write about charr culture, crackling sexual tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:20:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23182372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maximum_overboner/pseuds/red-catmander
Summary: The new recruit stirs old feelings, and the old fool stirs new ones.
Relationships: Tybalt Leftpaw/Original Character(s), Tybalt Leftpaw/Player Character
Series: Ad Meliora [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1666561
Kudos: 18





	Prone to Bruising

**Author's Note:**

> now isn't this unusual! for those of you that keep up with my fics here, i'm actually a huge gw2 fan! i've written up some fics of my oc these last few months and just had them sitting around, so i thought i'd share them. for malcon readers, things are trucking along! hope you enjoy

The human adage is that you can tell the quality of a pyromancer by the scars on their hands. The charr adage is you can tell the quality of a pyromancer by how easily you string them up by their bowels. 

Emberthroat frowned. She recalled the envoy from Divinity’s Reach didn’t care for that pearl of cultural wisdom. But, she admitted, the children’s outreach program for gifted elementalists was not the place to say it.

Tybalt hauled the last of the bags in, thumping them unceremoniously on the floor and sending the noise rocketing across the caves in a great, calamitous din. He pointed to one of the hollows, covered in old straw.

“This one is my house,” he beamed.

Emberthroat looked at the hollow. “You call it a house?”

Tybalt chuckled as if it had only just occurred to him to be self-conscious. “It’s only one storey. I guess it’s a bungalow.” 

The Chantry of Secrets was, predominantly, a meeting space, but allowed service members to bunk temporarily. The Chantry was also, to discourage loitering and investigation from outside sources, a damp, dark, miserable cave nobody would willingly spend time in. Tybalt carried his bags as if he didn’t know this, holding the same appreciation for the space as he would have for a hotel with moa-feather sheets. Emberthroat looked at their cavern, clattering her leg on a stalagmite, and tugged on the fur of her chin. In the walls sat clusters of pods, the rock scooped out like butter, with stones arranged nearby to form fire pits and beat back the damp.

“Better than outside,” he said, sensing her consternation.

“Is it?”

“It’s less dangerous. Don’t tell me you’re too prissy to sleep rough? Like the little cats humans keep and pamper and put bows on.”

“Hardly,” she snorted.

“Pity, it’d be good to have the company! Ha! Oh, don’t look at me like that, I’d look great in a bow. Teal really brings out my eyes.”

Her gaze bored into him. She set her bag down.

“Wow, nothing? Not even a pity laugh? Tough crowd. The guys in the bar love that one.”

“Hm.”

“Probably helps that they’re drunk! Eh? Eh? Nothing. Like a brick wall. Well, I tried. Let me make up your room.”

He grabbed an armful of fresh straw from a bale and threw it artlessly into a bare hollow. He stood back and appraised it, claw-to-chin. In these brief moments, the joviality slipped and revealed a stern countenance, an engineer surveying his work and weighing up the dangers. Something wasn’t right. He pulled an apple from his pocket and placed it inside. He dusted off his hands, satisfied.

“Fruit is for cubs and civilians,” said Emberthroat. “We’re in active service. There’s enough charr here for the Order to know the score: if you request meat only, they’ll give it to you.”

“I know,” he said. “I eat a lot of meat. But I wanted apples.” He waved to her hollow. “I hope you’re not offended. It’s not a comment on your martial prowess.”

“I’m not that delicate. You’re clearly capable; why demean yourself with a cub’s diet?”

“I think it’s more demeaning to be told what to eat. Cubs are forced to eat fruit,” he said. “I, as a charr of sound mind, choose to eat fruit. Try it! You might like it.”

Emberthroat looked at the apple. Shiny, red and freshly picked. The strongest cubs fought for the meat, beating and mauling one another in the creche for the prime cuts. The others got the fruit and the runts got the greens as the primus weighed potential against potential. What cogs were best greased to serve the great and starving war machine.

She had never eaten an apple.

“It’s demeaning,” she said.

“‘Demeaning’, ‘demeaning’, ‘demeaning’,” Tybalt spoke with warmth, shaking his head. He was judging, but in a manner that didn’t feel particularly judgemental. “The next time you’re by the asura gates, take a look at the charr coming in from the Black Citadel. Then look at the charr around Lion’s Arch. The merchants, workmen, the older the better. They’ve got a little glint in the eye. Do you know why?”

“I suspect you’re going to tell me no matter what I say.”

“Because they don’t care,” he laughed. “They care about the big things, of course. But for everything else they just… Don’t care. No honour, no glory. No worrying about the warband or if you made the cut for the mission. Take it from me, you’ll be a lot happier here if you loosen up.”

“And who says I’m not happy?”

He settled on the flat stone near the fire-pit, tossing in a few dry logs from the piles by the pods. He pulled out a stick of flint and his knife, skimming it. “I’ve never known a happy charr to make an argument of a free meal.”

Emberthroat sat opposite, watching him work. She waited until he was halfway done and set it alight herself, her claw dragging a symbol out of the air.

“Thank you,” he said.

“It’s what I’m here for.”

“I didn’t know if it was rude to ask. You’re off the clock, after all.”

“No such thing, Leftpaw.”

“This will help with the cold, at least, it’s freezing. I’m surprised there’s nobody else around, there’s always a few stragglers.”

“Perhaps they heard we were coming.”

He belly-laughed, bringing his apple to the sharp edge of his nail and carving out a plane. “I wish we were that important!” Emberthroat watched him glance at her mouth, at the misalignment of her jaw and the protrusive angles of her bottom teeth, her incisors sloping up and over her muzzle. As quickly as the look arrived, it left, and he resumed his peeling, his voice smacking off the walls. “These make great stews, y’know. Great in all sorts of meals! There’s a place in Lion’s Arch that does this little green soup, leek and—”

“Human food?”

“Oh yeah,” he said, picking up on her incredulity and tactfully putting it to one side. The great worm of apple-skin grew in length until it wriggled on the floor. “It takes some getting used to. You might not like it the first few times, and they put a lot of dolyak milk in some dishes— avoid it, no matter how good it smells— but some of it is tasty. Anyway, this soup, I asked what was in it and do you know what the chef said? Leek and apple! I know!”

He held the white lump in his paws and in a practised move, split it in half. He braced a bowl to his lap and sliced it thinly, holding it to the sponge of his scarred paw-pad and cutting with his claw.

“Well, leek, and apple, and onion, broccoli, parsley and chicken broth. But that’s hard to fit on the menu. It was the first ‘human’ meal I ever ate. Actually, norn eat it, too. There’s a lot of overlap in their cooking. Not that I’m an expert, but they use a lot of the same ingredients. Like potatoes. Have you ever had a potato?”

The slices plunked into the bowl. “No,” she said. He let out a disbelieving chuckle.

“The next time we’re in Lion’s Arch, I’m getting you a nice big basket of potato skins. The ones with bacon. It’ll get you off my back about eating meat, huh?” He cracked up. Emberthroat scanned the broad features of his face, the cadence of his voice, for any sign that he was mocking her, that this was some joke she wasn’t privy to. She couldn’t find any. She suspected that he was truly, honestly like this, and she wasn’t sure what to make of it.

The last of the apple lay splayed in the bowl. He picked up another apple and took a great, heaving bite, splitting the waxy skin and mashing it on his incisors. He presented the bowl with the other hand, handing it over the fire. She saw it again, that look, glancing at her jaw. He made no thing of it. This chatty charr. This quiet kindness.

She looked at his weaker hand, ruddy red and sitting oddly. 

She took the bowl. She picked up a slice and manoeuvred it to her molar. She cracked its flesh on one of her few good teeth. She cringed.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t eat this. It’s too sweet. It’s like eating sugar.”

“It’s fine,” he said, taking back the bowl and scooping the slices into his mouth. She looked at his injury. She didn’t stare but she didn’t hide where her eye went, either. “Because now you know.”

In elementalists, every little burn was a proud mistake. Great care was taken to draw attention to them, these scars, these war-medals seared into the skin. Humans had taken to accentuating the patterns with stones or gems, or marking them poultices that made them shine and dulled the pain. Individually, they marked failure. Overextending, miscalculating, misapplication. But, together, they weaved a tapestry. Mottled and burned at the edges, but legible. The bad pyromancers didn’t have these scars. In fact, they didn’t have much of anything. So the humans decorated themselves, as they often did, around these mistakes. 

Charr let them sit in the open. No pageantry, no pomp, no boasting. If you saw them, good, if you didn’t, fine. Every soldier worth their mettle had a scorch mark, had the green seared right out of them. She looked at her own claws, singed at the edges and always black with soot, then looked at Leftpaw’s right paw. Always angled away. 

She rifled through her bag, absently checking her supplies. Vials of blood and crushed dust in delicate glass bottles. 

He was hiding something. With charr it’s not the look of scars, it’s how you get them. She didn’t care to ask, but she knew.

“Well,” he said, “as the newest initiate, I imagine you have a lot of questions—”

“None come to mind.”

“— So you can consider me your Chantry tour guide. Don’t feel the need to hold your applause, I’m open to being humoured.”

She pulled out her book, Alchemical Wards and Their Study, and a small light to read by, whiter and harder than the fire-light. She glanced up at Tybalt. She lisped a moment before she caught it and over-corrected, making her sound more dismissive than she intended. “Sorry, I thought you did clerical work?”

She saw, with some amusement, that he did have a button to push. His tone was still jovial but took on an acrid note. “What warband did you say you were from again? The Bringdowns? The Buzzkills? Consider me your Chantry tour guide, license pending. Oh, here’s a juicy one—”

He slipped his satchel off his shoulder. It hit the ground with a hard, wet thunk, and he scooted it in front of him.

“Before we all came here, a lot of us were career criminals— not me, I was an accidental one— but they make a point to secure everything that’s not nailed down to stop anyone from getting ideas. Food is the most popular target. Getting in at all reflects badly on the higher-ups, so even if you’re caught you’re rarely punished. At least, that’s how it seemed to me when I processed the reports. It’s a win-win. The Order’s security is tested for flaws and the best agents make themselves known. Would not leave your bag unattended while you’re here, I have full confidence that you can entrust your life to any member, no question, but they might take a few silver when they’re there.”

“Noted.”

“Did you see that big door on the way in? Funny looking, shines even when it’s out of the light.”

Emberthroat raised a brow, putting the book aside. “Just a glimpse. I didn’t know what to make of it.”

“Thought you might like that. I’m shocked the Priory didn’t snap you up.” Tybalt tossed a few logs into the fire, watching them thrash and snap. “It’s where they keep the documents. Officially. Unofficially, I hear it’s where the higher-ups hide their goodies. But that door is a marvel. I’ll always take charr-made but I have to admit, Asuran engineering is a hell of a thing. Pretty, too, when it’s not exploding. Well, it’s been up for, oh… Coming up for two years.”

“That’s quite impressive.”

“It’s not just impressive, it’s miraculous. The alloy’s nothing I’ve ever seen. I don’t know how I’d even begin handling it. It’s enchanted, too. Did you catch the symbols?”

“It’ll give you a nasty shock if you touch that handle without dispelling it.”

“You can read them? How nasty?”

“My scrying isn’t what it used to be,” she admitted, tapping on her book, “but I saw ‘death’, ‘pain’, and another word that loses the nuance when you translate it.”

“Try me.”

“‘Deathpain’.”

Tybalt winced. “Yeah, thought as much. Never had a head for magic, but I know what a half-dozen electrified rats mean. It’s a shame it’s down here. Really, I mean it, it’s a marvel and it’s stuck in this damp, dark cave, no use to anyone. Isn’t that sad?”

“It’s a door,” she said. “It doesn’t care.”

Tybalt threw his arm up. “I know it doesn’t care! I know. I’m a sensitive charr, I have a poet’s soul.”

“Find a better poet.”

“Pah! Well, as I was saying, I bet this was smuggled from Rata Sum. If you don’t have a key, I’d be willing to call it impenetrable. You could stick that in front of a siege engine and it’d level this place before it even made a single scratch. Made by one of the finest engineers to ever pick up a hammer. Or whatever it is Asurans have. A tiny, tiny hammer.”

“Your point being?”

“Well,” he said, “the door itself is a marvel, but I had a look at it propped up. The genius that made it didn’t install it.”

Emberthroat felt her stomach starting to bottom out. “Oh no.”

He wiggled his brows. “Oh yes! A fool welded it onto the frame. Craters all along the joints, one good crack with the butt of a rifle and it exploded.”

She already had her head in her hands. She almost couldn’t bring herself to say it. “You mean your rifle.”

“Whoa, hey, whoa,” Tybalt said, rooting through his satchel. He pulled out wads of fresh, rich meat and a firkin of the most expensive ale in Tyria. “Let’s not go implicating anyone in anything here.”

She rubbed her temples. “If I get expelled in under two weeks Tribune Brimstone is going to break my staff over his knee and send me out to wrestle ghosts naked.”

“That would be pretty bad. But it’d be a record, and entertaining, so you’d always have that. Drink? You’re already an accomplice.”

She snapped forward, glowering. “In what manner!”

Tybalt didn’t budge an inch. He puffed out his chest. “Well, I didn’t know the runes meant death, pain and deathpain. Now I do. In fact, if anyone asks, I think I’ll mention that it was essential to me gaining entry. There! Now you’re implicated. This is the best stuff in all of Tyria. I’d wager a hundred gold per tankard. Half for me, half for you. Eat up, partner, we’ve got a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”

She lunged forward again, clattering her horns on his, sending a cold pain through his skull. She was taller but built like a branch, with thin, skinny outcrops prone to burning. She smashed her forehead to his to prompt him to push back. “Sell my half, then, if it’s so expensive!”

Tybalt didn’t move. He didn’t even meet the challenge. He sat there as if it wasn’t happening and all she could see was the soft, white tufts of his face. “I won’t. It’s a present. Besides, the door’s already broken and as my partner, they’ll point the finger at you anyway. What, you want the blame and none of the spoils?”

“Oh, of all the—” 

She relented, sulking back and throwing herself down onto her behind. Tybalt handed it over. Emberthroat took the firkin, punctured a thick hole with her claw and dumped as much booze down her gullet as she could stand. Finally, she relented, plugging the hole and feeling the world swim out from under her. Tybalt took a more measured drink. “So?” He asked, eager. “How is it?”

“That’s… What is that?”

He raised his hands as if presenting the grand and esoteric to a captive audience, a magician plying his trade. “It’s a flavour.”

She lapped at the spill on her wrist, astounded. She snapped her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “In alcohol?” 

“I know,” he breathed. “They… The humans, the norn, they… They take flavours.”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“And they put them in alcohol.”

Emberthroat shook her head. “You’ve lost me. Is such a thing even possible? When do I go blind? Does it set in later?”

“Here’s the thing,” he said, gleeful. “It doesn’t.”

Tybalt watched, with obvious delight, as the stranglehold the High Legions held on her thoughts lessened a fraction. “Burn my fur, if you put one human tavern in the Citadel the war would be forgotten in thirty minutes!”

“I don’t think humans would be so charitable,” he chuckled.

“We can give them— what’s the stuff Iron make?”

“Grain?”

“Yes, but there’s another name for it. The ‘proper’ one and the one we use, what’s the other one?”

“Oh,” he nodded. “Liquid Arson.”

“Right!”

“That kills humans,” he said.

“It’s an acquired taste. What did you do with the door?”

“It’s still there, guarding the floor. Might stop a dredge, I guess.”

“You’re far smarter than you come across,” she admitted.

“I wish people would stop saying that! It’s not a compliment.”

“From me it is.”

“Well, thank you, Emberthroat, for saying I only look stupid.”

She tore strips off the meat and bundled them into the back of her throat, swallowing. “You’re welcome.”

Tybalt ate his whole, knocking back his meal with ale. “Ah,” he said, “this is the life. Two charr, outcasts of the Black Citad—”

“Actually,” she said, pointedly, “I was legionnaire.”

Tybalt sprayed his food on the cave wall, coughing. “A legionnaire legionnaire?”

“As opposed to a not-a-legionnaire legionnaire, which is high treason: yes. I lead my warband. What did you expect?”

“A gladium! A legionnaire— half the charr here are gladia, myself included. The other half is on thin ice with their warbands.”

“I have more honour than that.”

“I’m sure you do,” he chirped. “But this is the Order of Whispers. And we’re the same rank. At the bottom.”

“I—”

He had a point. Promoted up and demoted out were the same thing, now that they were here.

“Sorry,” she said. “You’re right. We’re not in the Citadel anymore.”

“Exactly! Exactly. You, my friend, just figured out something that took me four years. Fresh out of Ascalon,” he sighed, propping up the heft of his neck with his paw. “Would you allow an old, weathered charr some nostalgia—?”

“Weathered? You’re only five years older than me.”

“— Cut me some slack, the Bloodtide Coast isn’t called that because it’s pleasant here. Can I ask how things are? I haven’t been back since I left.”

Unceremoniously, then. A gladium with a scorch mark. She pursed her lips, sending her underbite over her muzzle. “If it will stop you dying of old age here and now, yes, I’ll answer your questions.”

He looked giddy. He bobbed his legs. “What Legion?”

“Blood.”

He looked at her wiry physique and blunt staff propped against the cave wall, sparking gently. “Really?”

She frowned, framing her eyes with blue-white tufts of fur. “Yes. Not Flame.” 

“Well, I assumed— not that I’m one to turn away good people, no matter the Legion— but I assumed—”

She groaned, cursing for the millionth time that her aptitudes were better suited to Flame shamanism and cursing for the billionth time that everyone else seemed to know as well. “Want to know a secret? I’ve considered it.”

He leaned forward, genuinely intrigued. “Really? As a female? My warband had deserters but they were all males. I’ve heard it’s barbaric.”

“Yes, I looked at all my accomplishments and thought about how I loathed being able to read, write and own property. No, I’m not Flame. Get a grip.”

He cracked up. “That was a canned answer. I guess shamans—”

“Pyromancers,” she corrected, curtly.

“Pardon me,” he said, raising his hands. “Wow, yeah, I guess that’s a loaded— uh, pyromancers must get that a lot.”

“Not as often as I used to. Better a canned answer than a drag-out fight.”

“Yeah, you can never win ‘em all.”

Her jaw crunched when she drank, bones set loosely where the mace hit. “Yup.”

“Frontlines?”

She gestured to her robes, ideal for the physicality of casting and ideal for engendering catastrophic stab wounds.“It’s a very ‘backlines’ frontlines,” she conceded. “You?”

“Iron,” he said, holding up his bad, rigid paw as proof of some vague mishap. An acknowledgement used to ward off any further questions on the matter. “I’m not one for marching out and being gunned down. No offence.”

“None taken. I think. I’d have taken you for Ash if you’re here.”

“Nah,” he said, “not cut out for it. Too, uh, how do I put it… Flimsy? Mighty charr, strong and brash, the battle starts and down goes Ash!”

“Old training chant? Never heard that one.”

“Big and strong and thick as mud, cover your nose, here comes Blood!”

“Hey!”

“Present company excluded, of course.”

“Oh, Blood’s for war and battle and brawl, belly up or down in the trench! And Ash is for sneaking and killing and leaving, no guts to put up with the stench—!”

“Of death!” Tybald chimed in, knowing the round.

“And Flame’s for the weak, the spineless and meek, backs lashed with their tails as they run—”

“Run home!”

“Past Bloodcliff and Highden, Tongue Rock ‘n Amdaut, fleeing the sting of our guns!”

“I never remember this part, uh— they hate being shot! No, that wasn’t—”

“— But with heroes and villains and laurels to spare, the Legions stand their ground!” 

“Dig in!”

“In the face of gods and impossible odds, is where honour and glory abounds!” 

“Of death! Wait, damn, I did the wrong—”

“But not everyone’s brave and not everyone’s smart, nor cunning, swift, and fierce!” 

“Like us!” 

“But lucky for me and lucky for you, Iron takes everyone else!”

They soothed themselves with nostalgia, making games of war and death as they had all their lives and finding it lacked the vibrant sheen the Citadel told them it had. Still, it was something. Tybalt took a long swig from the firkin and held it aloft. “Oorah!”

Emberthroat took the firkin and chugged from it as well. She could, for a moment, smell him on the wood. She spluttered, playing it off as drunkenness. “Oorah!”

He shook his head, smiling. “I do miss it.”

“What, all of us making fun of Iron?”

“I suppose! The Black Citadel, my warband, the whole charr…” 

He waggled his arm over the fire, unsure of how to put it.

“‘Thing’. It’s nice to talk to someone who understands. You’ll miss it too, but you’ll adjust.”

“I can go back.”

“You can. But you won’t. Not for a long, long time, not if you’re here. And it won’t be the same when you do.”

She frowned. His chatter didn’t hold the same genial tone she had become accustomed to. He sat there, a dour drunk trying hard to be happy, sat opposite another dour drunk. “How did you become a gladium?”

He chuckled. He scraped at the wood of the firkin with his claw, splintering it and flicking them aside absently. “Same way anyone else does,” he muttered.

She picked at the hem in her robe. “I’m sorry,” she said. “About your warband.”

“How is it there these days?”

“Pardon?”

“In the Citadel.”

She blinked, struggling to answer such a nebulous question. “The Thitad— Citadel is the same as it ever was.”

“Prep deck still stink?”

She nodded. “I heard someone fell in the smelter the day before I disembarked, but I don’t know if that’s true.”

“Another one! That’s good luck, you know.”

“Don’t you think you’re trying too hard?”

Tybalt spluttered. He pushed to find something to say, to string together some syllables to refute the statement, but it petered off. They looked at one another. There was some spark, some hum on a lower frequency that resounded, for a moment, then went quiet. Tybalt looked at her from under his brows, as if moving to say something, but refrained when she looked away. She suppressed a slow swish of the tail and looked to the mouth of their chamber, tracking a man, a human, walking in. He looked between the two of them. Emberthroat watched him calculate if he was going to be the one to interrupt two drunk charr and as quickly as he arrived, he left, rubbing his temples. 

“We should probably keep it down,” she muttered.

“Yeah,” said Tybalt. He tore into his meal. The stalactites dripped. Neither was sure of what to do, now aware of this static hum. Tybalt veered to change the subject. “What’s it like?”

“Hm?”

“Being legionnaire?”

Emberthroat breathed a sigh of relief, presented with something she knew, something material and easy to explain. “It’s a lot of pressure,” she admitted. “I see why some warbands fracture. The struggle isn’t keeping your men in line, it’s knowing when not to. I’ve seen legionnaires squeeze the life out of their warbands without even knowing. Not that I’m one to sling mud; not with my geomancy test scores.”

“Is that what that’s called? Huh! I would have said terramancy. Tyria-mancy?”

“It’s a common misconception. Pyromancy, aeromancy, geomancy—”

“Watermancy?”

“Hydromancy,” she corrected.

Tybalt put a paw on her shoulder. He was still chewing. “I don’t think you need to hide it at all. I think you should be proud of what you can do."

She looked at him. “Thanks, Tybalt,” she said, tonelessly.

“You’re welcome,” he replied.

Emberthroat waited a moment, her eyes flicking to his touch. “Your claw...?”

“Hm?” 

His gaze followed his own shoulder, up to his elbow, up to his paw, as if following the root of a tree over a rock. He snapped his hand back. “Oh, burn me, sorry! Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

“No no! No, I’m not here to make you uncomfortable. Backing up. Backing way up.”

She reached over and gave his shoulder an awkward squeeze. “Really. It’s fine.”

“Oh. I, uh… Well, good. I’m glad.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

His hand found her shoulder again. Then, with encouragement, the top of her breastplate. Then, underneath. Being in mixed company for too long had left his expressions, flat and inscrutable to the other races, shockingly artless. Years of overcorrecting for non-charr laid bare. She couldn’t fathom a worse quality in a spy and yet couldn’t bring herself to scold him for it. And in that artless, earnest expression, she saw that he was utterly plastered. She sighed, gripped his wrist and pulled it out of her top.

“Hm?” He murmured.

“When we’re not so drunk,” she slurred. “We’re in enough trouble as it is.”

“Then what’s a little more?”

She laughed, exhaling. She had half a mind to pull him over by the shirt but, no, she had her duty and she couldn’t go throwing it away for the first male she clapped eyes on away from the city. “We’ll bed up for the night. We’ll talk about this tomorrow when the ground isn’t so… Swirly, ugh… Don’t pop your collar and undo a good thing.”

“It’s too late. It’s going up.”

“Don’t.”

He popped up the thin rim of his collar. It became lost in his fur. “I’m a ladies charr now. Good luck getting ahold of me when the booze wears off.”

“Go to sleep, Leftpaw. Don’t abbreviate my name when you write your apology letter tomorrow.”

“I’ve still got it!”

“You’ve never had it.”

“I’ve still got it! Oh, the things I can do with one paw— wait—”

“Sleep, Leftpaw.”

“It’s Studpaw, now.”

She gathered water out of the air and flicked it at him. “We’re done for the night. Shoo,” she lisped.

“‘Thoo’.”

“Shoo, shoo, with a ‘sh’, like in ‘shut up’, shoo.”

“Quaggan warband? Argh, that was a rock, alright! Alright, I’m just teasing. I’m going to bed. Right on the noggin… I thought you couldn’t ‘do’ geomancy?”

With a deft leap, she claimed the top pod, feeling the rocks jab into her fur. “I can do enough.”

“Stuck with the only charr that’s never laughed a day in her life… Throws rocks… Grumble grumble.”

“You’re a foot away and I can hear you say ‘grumble grumble’, Leftpaw.”

She heard him settle into the bunk under, the crack of straw under his bulk. “Butts in on private conversations, grumble grumble… By the way, I snore,” he said. “So if you can’t get any sleep, gimmie a shake and I’ll settle down.”

“Right,” Emberthroat replied. “I snore too. Sometimes I set fires in my sleep so I’d mist that straw.”

“I’m not the worst one in the barracks! Yes! I’ve been waiting years for this. I think we’re going to get along.”

She wasn’t smiling, but she was. “Likewise.”

They bedded down for the night. The hum was deafening.


End file.
